Life Lessons from Escape the City

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of attending Escape the City’s fabulous Winter Party at Guanabara, near Covent Garden. It was titled, ‘Start Something You Love’, and featured a number of speakers who have all made a business out of doing things they love. Ideally, this is something I’d also like to take part in, beyond spending my days in bed watching Mad Men, so I thought it best I go along and listen to what they had to say.

If you don’t know, Escape the City is a great website set up by Dom and Rob, who I heard from fellow conference attendees are a bit like Ant and Dec. Essentially, Escape the City is a network of people wanting to escape their boring ‘city’ jobs and do something different (and hopefully more fulfilling) with their lives. It has great job listings, and a lot of wonderful advice from wonderful people who have successfully escaped the city. You should really check it out, if you haven’t already.

Before Wednesday, I’d never been to a conference at a bar before. I strongly recommend it. Speaking at the event was Lara Morgan, founder of Pacific Direct, a soap supply company she sold for some large amount of money. Also speaking was Zarine Kharas, founder of JustGiving, Al Humphreys, who successfully biked around the world, and Ed Stafford, who once walked the entire length of the Amazon. Al and Ed have since become professional adventurers, and now busy themselves with challenges great and small (walking a circuit of the M25 in Al’s case) and talking about them afterwards. While listening to the speakers, I couldn’t help but feel supremely privileged to be receiving advice from such learned individuals. I learnt a lot that day, and would like to share these insights with you all, which I hope will prove helpful in business, and in life.

So, here you have it. Enjoy.

BE A CHAMELEON: Know who you’re selling to. Whether you’re brokering a deal, applying for a job, or building rapport with great people (making friends), gauge who your audience is, and what they’re looking for. Be who they want you to be. I mean this in the best possible way. I don’t mean for you to become a pushover, and bend your will to the fancy of everyone around you. That’d be just silly. Instead, be who you are, but learn which side of your personality to have on show at any one time.

NEVER GIVE UP: This one is a given. It doesn’t matter if you’re starting a business, or trying to navigate your way through the Amazon Rainforest on your own. Don’t give up. Just keep swimming, and you’ll eventually win. At life. Or at swimming.

DON’T WAIT, DO ACT: Zarine Kharas admitted that in coming up with the idea for JustGiving, there was never a ‘eureka’ moment. We can learn from this. We’re all incredibly good at putting things off because it’s not the right time for action. Stop it. In most cases, that eureka moment most likely isn’t going to fly in out of nowhere and hit you in the face. This isn’t to say that favourable opportunities don’t appear; if they do, take them, but don’t get lazy waiting. Enlightenment is a process. Get to it.

EXPERIENCE IS EVERYTHING: Another pearl of wisdom from Ms Kharas was that entrepreneurship is a skill. You can learn it, which I’m sure is a relief to many entrepreneurship practitioners and scholars around the globe. After being an entrepreneur for a while, it makes sense that you begin to know how it works. This can be applied to most things in life. Experience all you can, and keep at it. If something doesn’t work out, try and try again until you get it right. At the risk of sounding massively cliché, never give up.

KEEP BUSY: Al Humphreys let on that in his spare time, between his bigger adventures, he likes to keep himself busy with a series of ‘mini-challenges’. I’m sure many of us don’t have an insatiable thirst for endurance challenges, but it’s important to keep yourself stimulated to keep on top of your game.

MAKE LOTS OF FRIENDS (BE NICE): Ed Stafford was forced into some pretty sticky situations whilst trekking across South America. He was held at gunpoint, spear-point, and even jagged rock-point, I’m sure. When his original adventuring partner dropped out, he thought his journey was over. It probably would have been if it wasn’t for his capacity to make friends. His talk was certainly inspiring, so I’m going out on a limb here to say that Ed Stafford is an inspiring kind of guy. Assuming this is correct (which I’m sure it is), he inspired many to accompany him on his travels, and even recruited one South American gent relatively early on, who stayed with him for the remainder of his journey. He also ‘inspired’ the chieftain of a Native American tribe not to kill him, and instead hired him as a guide to help him navigate his way through a particularly treacherous part of South America. Just as Ed’s ability to make friends ensured he completed his trek in earnest, we too must not underestimate the importance of making friends. We never know when they could (literally or metaphorically) save our lives, so be nice.

DON’T BE EVIL: One of Zarine’s parting entreaties was a warning to not be evil. Lara Morgan also echoed this sentiment in her talk. Indeed, it is very important to treat others how we expect to be treated ourselves. Be fair and accommodating, and people will want to do business with you. Be cold and miserly and you can expect not to benefit from much of anything.

JUST (FUCKING) DO IT: Zarine Kharas, before exiting, joked about her most favourite of corporate slogans. I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. Go out there, and make amazing things happen. You have the power.

Well, that’s all, folks. Thank you to Escape the City, for putting on a brilliant night of inspiration and revelry, and thank you to the speakers for the much-needed kick up the proverbial. Thank you to you, also, for reading. I hope it’s been helpful.

Like this:

Related

One Comment on “Life Lessons from Escape the City”

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Aris and Escape the City, Aris. Aris said: I went to @escthecity's inspirational Winter Party the other day. I learned many life lessons, which I pass on to you. http://bit.ly/hnMx8R […]